What makes a city?

[Hatman 🍁]

Ontario is strange too. Dryden is a city with 8000 people while Oakville is a Town with 200,000 people.

[Hatman 🍁]

Before going into detailed discussion (which I am very interested in), I think it is useful to look at the international standards, namely the Nomenclature of Units for Territorial Statistics (NUTS), which is structured as followed:

NUTS 0 (not defined officially): Nation. The only 'real' city nation I can think of is Singapore.

NUTS 1: State (US/ Germany), Province (Canada), or equivalent (e.g. planning regions in France, Spain, Italy and Poland; Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and English planning regions in the UK). Ideally, NUTS 1 regions should have between 3 and 7 million inhabitants, though several US and German states fall outside these borders. NUTS 1 cities include Washington DC, Ottawa, Greater London, Berlin, Madrid, Hamburg, and the Brussels Capital Region. Borderline cases are Isle de France (Paris Metro), and Gibraltar and Monaco.

NUTS 2:  States within smaller federal nations such as Austria, and the largest administrative subdivision in non-federal countries, i.e. regions (F, I, DK), autonomous communities (E), provinces (NL, BE), voivodships (PL), and - as an anomaly, they should be NUTS 3 - UK counties. Not defined for the US. Ideally, NUTS 2 regions should have between 0.8 and 3 million inhabitants. NUTS 2 cities include several European capitals (Vienna, Prague) or their metros (Stockholm, Bukarest). Among the more exotic cases are Ceuta, Andorra, and San Marino.

NUTS 3: County or equivalent (French departments, Italian/ Spanish Provinces, etc.), ideally with a population between 150,000 and 800,000. NUTS 3 cities are quite numerous in Germany, the UK and Poland. They should also be widespread across the US, even though most of the larger US cities would be better placed in the NUTS 2 category (which does not exist in the US).

NUTS 4 (abolished in 2003): Largest county subdivision, typically an unitary community, or a group of smaller communities, but also subdivisions of larger (NUTS 1-3) cities. Ideally 20,000-150,000 inhabitants. In the US case, many rural counties would rather qualify as NUTS 4 than NUTS 3. Essentially, all smaller cities / towns are NUTS 4.

NUTS 5 (abolished in 2003): : Smallest territorial unit, such as the US Census Block, the UK Electoral Ward, individual German communities that form part of an unitary community or a community association (Samtgemeinde, Amt), etc.

Note that territories can fall within multiple NUTS groups. Estonia, e.g., is NUTS 0-2, Isle-de-France is NUTS 1&2, Berlin / Ottawa/ Washington D.C. are NUTS 1-3, etc.

I don't think Ottawa counts as NUTS 1. Maybe NUTS 3. It's not its own province or territory in the way DC is.